{"id":3822,"date":"2025-05-09T18:18:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T18:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/?page_id=3822"},"modified":"2025-05-09T18:18:42","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T18:18:42","slug":"imagining-ignorance-as-a-misheard-squirrel-by-brendan-walsh","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/imagining-ignorance-as-a-misheard-squirrel-by-brendan-walsh\/","title":{"rendered":"“imagining ignorance as a misheard squirrel” by Brendan Walsh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

that squirrel chirping from the limb
of a mature buttonwood tree
sounds a hell of a lot like a grackle
if you don\u2019t know what a squirrel
or a grackle sound like. which you don\u2019t.
you go home, tell your wife you heard
a strange grackle over on monroe street,
and she sighs, yeah? that\u2019s great,<\/em> turns the tv up.
you do a bit of grackle research
but don\u2019t bother to listen to recordings
of their dozen songs, none of which
sound like a fucking squirrel.

you realize there\u2019s a dearth
of grackle appreciation groups in your city,
so you start one based on the enchanting
call of a squirrel you assumed was a bird.
the group gets out of hand quickly.
300 people join on facebook, unleash grackle theories
which have nothing to do with that song
you heard emanate from the buttonwood\u2014
someone says all grackles are spies,
another posts a link to an obscure concept
called \u201cgrackle loss\u201d that implies grackles
haven\u2019t existed for decades and we\u2019re only
seeing and hearing the memory of grackles.

you think, that can\u2019t be right. seems far fetched<\/em>.
but at this point your group splinters.
factions and rivals argue and plot takeovers.
there are rumblings of armed conflict,
so you leave the group, close your tab
which has grackle-recordings a button-push away,
any of which might lead you to question
if you had actually heard a grackle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Brendan Walsh<\/strong> has lived and taught in New England, South Korea, Laos, and South Florida. His work has appeared in Glass Poetry<\/em>, Rattle<\/em>, Maine Review<\/em>, The American Journal of Poetry<\/em>, and other journals. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including concussion fragment<\/em>, winner of the 2022 Florida Book Award Gold Medal and november ninth<\/em> (dipity press, 2024). He co-hosts the Fat Guy, Jacked Guy<\/em> podcast with Stef Rubino, and you can find him online at brendanwalshpoetry.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

that squirrel chirping from the limbof a mature buttonwood tree sounds a hell of a lot like a grackleif you don\u2019t know what a squirrel or a grackle sound like. which you don\u2019t. you go home, tell your wife you heard a strange grackle over on monroe street, and she sighs, yeah? that\u2019s great, turns … <\/p>\n

Continue reading ““imagining ignorance as a misheard squirrel” by Brendan Walsh”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2310,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3822","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3827,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3822\/revisions\/3827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}